Wade H. McCree Jr. Dies at 67; Was Judge and Solicitor General

By ERIC PACE

Published: September 1, 1987

Wade H. McCree Jr., a former Solicitor General under President Carter and a former Federal judge, died Sunday night at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. He was 67 years old and lived in Ann Arbor, Mich., where he had been a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.

A spokesman for the hospital said Judge McCree died of a heart attack. He was being treated for heart ailments and a form of cancer the spokesman could not identify. A friend, however, said the judge suffered from bone cancer.

Dean Lee C. Bollinger of the law school described Judge McCree as ''one of the great figures in law of his time,'' adding: ''He was very distinguished as a judge, as a Solicitor General, as a professor. Few people can match the genuine significance of his career.''

He was considered one of the black jurists who rose to greatest eminence in recent decades, along with Thurgood Marshall, who was the first black Solicitor General, from 1965 to 1967, before becoming a Supreme Court Justice. 'Ultimate Arrogance'

On the Federal bench, Judge McCree showed no hesitation in expressing his views on race and justice. Early in his judicial career, a lawyer urged that he not preside over on a case that pitted a white against a black.

Judge McCree replied that he would excuse himself from the case only if a mulatto judge could be found, adding that ''the ultimate of arrogance is achieved when a white person thinks another white person can make a judgment without being influenced by race, and a black person cannot.''

He was appointed by President Kennedy as a judge on the Federal District Court in Detroit in 1961. Five years later, President Johnson promoted him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit which serves Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

He served on the appellate court until 1977, when President Carter appointed him Solicitor General, a post he held until 1981 and which he once said ''has to be the most exciting lawyer's job in the nation.'' Position in Bakke Case

The Solicitor General is the chief appellate lawyer for the Administration and the Justice Department. The duties include representing the executive branch before the Supreme Court.

In that post Judge McCree was called on to formulate the Carter Administration's position in the Supreme Court case involving Allan Bakke. Mr. Bakke, a white Californian, had contended that his application to the medical school at the University of California at Davis had been turned down while less-qualified minority applicants had been accepted.

Some associates said later that Judge McCree had found it difficult and painful to reconcile his zeal for civil rights with other legal considerations in that case.

''I'm in favor of special admissions programs,'' he said at the time, ''but people who can outgrow them should not become dependent on them.''

In the end, Judge McCree argued before the Supreme Court that race could indeed be used as one of the criteria weighed in admitting candidates to medical school.

The Court ruled in 1978 in favor of Mr. Bakke and ordered that he be admitted to the medical school. The Court said that race could be a factor in a university's policy of seeking a diverse student body. But it also found that in Mr. Bakke's case the medical school had applied a rigid racial quota system in derminating its admissions - to Mr. Bakke's disadvantage and in violation of the Constitution. Respect From Colleagues

After stepping down as Solicitor General in 1981, Judge McCree joined the University of Michigan Law School faculty.

As a judge, he won wide praise in legal circles for intelligence and judgment. And as Solicitor General, he enjoyed great good will from the Supreme Court justices, who respected his character and legal achievements.

Wade Hampton McCree Jr. was born in Des Moines and grew up in Boston and other cities where his father, a narcotics inspector for the Federal Food and Drug Administration, was stationed. His father was said to have operated the first black-owned pharmacy in Iowa.

After attending Boston Latin School, Judge McCree graduated from Fisk University in 1941 and went on to earn his law degree from Harvard in 1944. He practiced law in Detroit from 1948 to 1952.

He is survived by his wife, the former Dores B. McCrary, whom he married in 1946; two daughters, Kathleen Lewis of Detroit and Karen McCree of New York City and a son, Wade H. McCree of Detroit.